Stardreamers: Mythos, Memoirs, and Memories
by Zarathustra 86
Summary: Inspired by studies on secret societies and cults, this is a collection of short stories united by a common mythos. The story involves astrological phenomena, alternate dimensions, monsters, murderers, secret societies, cults, and psychics. These are tales of mystery, horror, love, loss, and the incomprehensible. Drawn from real world events. Warning: Violence and Mature Themes.
1. Introduction: The End Of The Aeon

**The End of the Aeon**

 **Introduction**

We are standing in the doorway between two historical epochs. Many of the things we thought we knew about the world around us are about to be irrevocably altered. Two new stars burn in the night sky, across the globe people are recovering strange, ancient artifacts. New religions are replacing the old. Stardreamers embark on nomadic journeys, guided by prophetic visions. Scientists and seers alike speak of other worlds.

The following are a collection of articles which may help to enlighten you. A note of caution: these articles are preliminary - not everything contained here is entirely accurate. Careful study of these selections will help you to understand the stories you are about to read. The contributors are not omniscient however, and we are only just learning about these new phenomena.

 **Alternate Dimensions/Parallel Worlds: A Theory No More**

Dimensions operate at different 'frequencies', atoms in one dimension never interact or affect those of another dimension. All dimensions follow the same physical laws as our own, but topology, chemical/elemental composition, and habitability may differ violently. Theoretically, a person or object can be transfered into alternate dimensions through a process of _'conversion'_.

Since the atoms comprising all matter are surrounded mostly by empty space, whole 'worlds' can exist in the same space as our own. The best analogy may be a television, each world having its own 'channel' that exists in the same space. Each reality runs parallel, never crossing into one another, progressing at the same stately pace.

The reason we cannot perceive or detect these alternate dimensions are Darwinian: since parallel dimensions never interact, there is no evolutionary benefit. Perceiving other dimensions wouldn't help yoy procreate, nor would it protect you from predators. Any mutation which let you 'see' the other dimensions would be useless at best, harmful at worst. It was only by serendipity that the discovery was made.

No working estimate exists on how many parallel dimensions exist, but the number is finite. Some say there are only two, some models suggest there are nine, one respected specialist has theorised that there are hundreds.

But the existence of at least one other dimension will soon become scientific consensus. Tests performed in China and Europe have drawn many to the conclusion that what we call "dark matter" - the unexplained mass that exists throughout the universe - is extradimensional matter. The most important fact is that we've _seen_ it. Though this fact has been kept a careful secret.

 _\- Japheth Goldhirsch_

 **The Black Arches**

The so-called "black arches" stand approximately 5.8m (19ft) tall and are made of what can be best described as a diamond or glass-like material. As their colloquial name suggests, the arches are a deep shade of black. The arches may be more appropriately compared to mirrors - long, flat, lustrous, symmetrical, smooth, with no details,ornamentation, or imperfections.

Six have been recovered - based on our best intelligence - but there's reason to suspect that there are at least three others currently under someone's guardianship. Experts in historical mythology and the studies of ancient civilizations believe there even more. The dimensions are identical, as far as we can determine, and they're scattered across the globe. Some of the recovered arches have frames or ornamentation, but we're fairly confident that these were added thousands of years later.

Estimates of the arches' age vary drastically (20-50 thousand years) and there is no agreement as to whether they were constructed all at once, or over a long period of time. Carbon-dating has proven unreliable when applied to the artifacts. The material of their construction matches nothing previously found on earth. It's harder than titanium and diamond. No acid seems to marr it, no heat we can produce seems to affect it. Stranger still, though it is lustrous and smooth, it casts no reflections. Even a spotlight won't reflect, it seems to simply swallow the light.

Researchers are totally perplexed by the arches. We have no theories as to who made them, or what function they're supposed to serve. One thing all parties agree on: they are not naturally occurring. They are too uniform and precise to be natural. Intelligent beings created these artifacts, millenia ago. Who they were, and why they were constructed, remains a mystery.

Precise dimensions: 5.8m x 2.2m x 0.8m

 _\- Christopher Simpson_

 **The Two Stars**

Over the course of the last five years, two new 'stars' have been discovered in our galaxy. The first was discovered by an amateur astronomer, when the star had already become visible from consumer telescopes. Over the subsequent years, this celestial object has grown to the point where it's visible by night to the naked eye. The star burns a light green.

About three years ago, European astronomers caught the first glimpse of a second 'star'. The first reports refer to a red star - only a fraction of the size of our Sun. More recent studies say it's of a size with our Sun, with reddish-orange colour. The red star can now be seen in the nights sky with the aid of binoculars.

Colloquially referred to as the "green star" and the "red star", scientists question whether they are truly stars at all. It seems likely that they are star-like in many respects, they look like stars after all, and they are probably comprised of gas. But their sudden appearance and rapid growth seem to indicate that this is some distinct phenomenom.

There has been a great deal of speculation about the affect these stars have on human psychology. The most likely explanation is there is none. If they are having a psychological affect, it's because people _believe_ there's an affect.

 _\- Ken Liu_


	2. The Creature From The Other World

**This is a fictional story by Zarathustra86. Any similarities to people or events it purely coincidental.**

 **Zarathustra86's work is also featured on DeviantArt:** **zarathustra86, deviantart, com**

 **The Creature From The Other World**

The moon above shone pale-red, making its slow journey across the night sky. The stars shone brightly, tonight the sky was crystal clear. The creature looked up at the moon, its eyes glowing a pale blue-green, its keen eyes spotted a tiny green star that it had never seen before. It was hungry, tired, and it was in pain. Scurrying on four, spider-like legs, it made made its way through the dense forest around it. Its skin was leathery, dark grey, and lined with hard, pointed nails. It followed the light of the green star, it had never seen the star before, the green star was _new._

It's lower torso resembled a spider, it's upper torso almost resembled that of a man, though smaller, with stunted arms ending with crab-like pincers. Its abdomen was grossly distended, looking as though it were about to burst. The small stunted arms would be unable to touch one another. Set atop the shoulders was the head of the creature (it had no neck). The head was insectoid, ant-like, triangular in shape. Its eyes covered half its head, glowing a pale-turquoise. Its mouth consisted of two mandibles. The creature had a brain similar to a human's, though half the size. _I am_ , the creature thought.

It was nocturnal. The day was blinding, the night was crystal clear. It was predatory. It was carniverous. It was _hungry_. Slaver dripped down from its mouth and its mandibles twitched. Off in the distance it spied a smaller four-legged animal, something like a large, hairless rodent. Quickly and silently, the creature advanced towards its prey. At the end of each of its legs were three finger-like appendages (two pointing forward, the third pointing the opposite way) with black talons on each finger. It set its long legs on fallen logs, rocks, or it grabbed low branches - this way it moved without a sound.

By the time the creature stood over the rodent it had yet to notice. The creature reached out with one of its taloned legs and snatched the rodent by its neck. It thrashed violently as it was raised to the creatures mouth. The mandibles closed around its neck, the bones cracked, then its head was torn loose and cast aside. Blood sprayed from its neck and the creature began to drink it. The rodent's blood nourished and energized the creature. Its abdomen ached, and inside something was stirring. The creature's children were stirring, eager for food. _I am woman_ , the creature though, though it soon faded.

After the rodent was consumed, the creature set out for another. It was pregnant. While pregnant she needed ten times that amount. So the creature continued its hunt, making its way through the dense forests with incredible speed and eerie silence. It ate a wrinkled, hairless, winged rodent, four white spiders as large as crabs, and an injured monkey-like animal.

As it feasted on the monkey it caught sight of a pale, bipedal animal, moving toward it through the woods. It was large, almost as tall as the creature itself. The biped took a few more steps forward before it realized that she saw it. It stopped, about fifteen feet away, and crouched low. Maybe it hoped it would be lost to sight, but it was not. The biped was milk white, with long brown hair down to its waist. Fur, skins, and wool covered its body and it held a seven-foot spear with a metal point on the end. _Man_ , the creature thought, then _danger_.

She dropped the carcass from her pincers, then crouched low. She thought about attacking the animal, but it was large, armed, and it saw her. She decided to run, but before she could a spear flew out of the woods - from an entirely different direction - and struck her in the abdomen. She was blinded by excruciating pain and she staggered backwards and fell. The spear fell loose, rending a huge hole in her abdomen. She shrieked in agony.

Blood and a transparent fluid gushed from the wound and three fleshy sacks spilled out. _My children,_ she thought frantically, _not my children_. Within the transclucent sacks were her offspring, curled up and moving feebly. When the two men reached her one began stomping on her children, screaming in some strange language. She shrieked anew, clacking her mandibles, as her babies exploded beneath his feet. The other one was staring at her as she lay dying, clutching his spear. It was the man she had spotted initially, _a decoy_ , she thought. He was watching her curiously, as though he recognized her, and said something that sounded like a question. She clacked in answer but he didn't seem to comprehend. He drove his spear between her eyes.

Moira awoke screaming, she thrashed about her bed. Throwing her blankets aside she rose and flicked on the lights. Panting, she ran to the long mirror on the inside of her door and stood there staring at her reflection. She was her. A human girl of 16, with blond hair and blue eyes. More pale perhaps. _A bad dream_ , she thought, and laughed. Her skin was beaded with sweat, her heart was thumping, and her eyes were wide. She sat on her bed and waited for her heart-rate to slow. As she sat, she tried to recall her dream but found she couldn't. She was a monster? Something stabbed her in the gut. There were woods. There was a small green star so far and small that no human could see it.

Moira had been plagued by bad dreams all her life, and this one had already begun to fade from memory. She might have placed more value on her dream had she known that astronomers had recently found a green star, where none had been before. She may have remembered the dream if she had seen the star, but it was beyond the limits of human sight.


	3. Testimony On David West

**David West:** 31yo, dark-brown hair, 6'1", medium-athletic build, 'handsome', member of the powerful West family.

* * *

 **Testimony on David West**

When I first met David West I was working as a contractor installing customized plumbing. Generally, this would entail a unique bath or hot tub, home saunas and steam rooms. My clientelle consisted exclusively of the rich. Many were millionaires and multi-millionaires; David West was the first billionaire I had ever worked for.

I confess that I disliked him immediately. He was rude, smug, and seemed to see himself as being better and smarter than everyone else. West had contracted me (or my employers, rather) for an expensive and elaborate project. The basements of the East and West wings of his sprawling mansion were to be converted into a personal indoor waterpark: private pool, hot tub, shower room, sauna - the works.

The Wests, I knew, were a political and financial powerhouse. Bradley West was a state governor who had come out of the real estate world. His son, Martin, had followed him into politics and was a congressman. His second son, David, stayed in the private sector, making billions in casinos and real estate.

The project lasted months but I rarely saw David West - and never spoke to him personally. He would come down periodically, inspect our work, exchange a few words with the boss, then go.

One evening, as we were nearing our deadline, I was working late into the evening. When the work day ended, the sun had fallen. As I was crossing the premises to where my car was parked, I saw Mr. West up ahead of me, strolling around his lawn. Only a moment later, I noticed a second figure hiding behind a nearby tree. It was a person, crouching low, watching David West. It immediately struck me as odd, so I stopped to watch.

The figure rose up and began walking toward Mr. West - that's when I spotted the gun. I shouted out a warning. Both David West, and his assailant, turned back and looked at me. For a moment my heart stopped and I thought the intruder might come after me. The assailant - which I could now see was male - turned back towards Mr West and began firing.

I don't know what possessed me to do so, but I broke into a full sprint, headed for the gunman. Mr. West was running away, the assailant in hot pursuit. He was shouting obscenities, periodically firing at West. He never heard me coming, maybe he assumed I would run away. I tackled him, the gun flying from his hands and landing in the grass. While the man cursed and tried to squirm loose, I pressed down on him, pinning him to the ground. At this point his security arrived and together we restrained the gunman.

The man, whoever he was, was hauled off by two large, bald bodyguards, his hands bound behind his back. The continued to thrash about, but he was old and weak - the guards held him tightly with gloved hands. David West came to me breathless, his skin pale and his eyes wide with terror. He proceeded to thank me profusely, saying that I had saved his life. He promised me that he would repay me for what I'd done. That night David West drove me home in a red Ferrari, along the way getting my phone number and assuring me that he would be in contact.

Near the end of the drive, I brought up the gunman and asked if I would be called to testify. Mr. West assured me that he would omit my involvement from the police report, there was no need to drag me into this. He sent me home with one thousand dollars cash. I was beaming. I had done something heroic, and made a grand to boot.

The next day I went to work as usual, but I heard nothing for David West. I assumed that he had simply given up on his promises, or forgotten. I continued working as if nothing had happened. The next day however, about halfway through the workday, he called me on my cell. He assured me he had not forgotten and he'd repay me as soon as the contract was complete - he claimed he feared it may create some conflict if one person currently in his employ received special gifts. It seemed reasonable to me.

The project was completed three days later, the next day David West called me. He invited me over to a house party he was having that night, then we could discuss how he could repay me. I came to his mansion that night to a party of hundreds of people. David greeted me in the foyer, then showed me around his mansion. I asked him what happened to the gunman, and why he wanted him dead so badly. He answered vaguely, impatiently, that the man had been arrested and was awaiting trial - Mr. West never mentioned my involvement to police. As to why the man wanted him dead, he said it was a business deal gone sour, though I suspected that wasn't the case.

He took me down to his basement, into the massive indoor pool. There were about a hundred people there. I commented on all the young, beautiful women present. West explained that he had connections to Hollywood and the fashion world, aspiring actresses and models flocked to his parties in the hopes of making industry connections.

Mr. West said he'd hook me up with someone and, true to his word, he did. That evening I went home with a beautiful blond. I don't know what West had promised her, but she pushed herself on me (though I suspected she felt no real attraction). The next morning we exchanged numbers, though I soon realized she'd given me a fake. She never called me.

One-thousand dollars, and a night with an actress. I thought the debt had been paid. But David West called me a few days later. He said he had one more thing to give me and to see him tomorrow afternoon. The next day I came and he walked me over to his five-car garage. He showed me a black BMW. He explained that he had crashed it into a streetlight. Indeed, it looked like someone had taken a pipe to the fender, and the right headlight was cracked. He said he was thinking of selling it, but if I'd accept it as payment I could have it.

I eagerly agreed. The damage was superficial, and there was no way I could ever afford a BMW. He asked me if the debt had been repaid, and I said he'd repaid me many times over. He shook my hand and wished me well. That's the last time I saw David West.

It was only a few days later, as I pulled my black BMW into my driveway, that the police arrested me. I was in total shock, when the one officer mentioned 'murder' I almost fainted. They took me to the station and explained the reason for my arrest. The car I was driving matched one spotted near the place a murdered man was dumped.

They managed to trace the vehicle back to David West, who was taken into custody. But, as he explained, he had given the car to me. He said he had seen the murdered man however. He said the man had shown up on his property, but in his version of the story, the man was angry at me. West had said that the man had accused me of manipulating, controlling, and coercing his daughter. Using her as some sort of sex slave. When the man attacked me, Mr. West had him removed from his property. My hair had been found on the dead man's body.

The next day the police took me into an interrogation room and began to question me about the dead man's daughter. I told them that I had never met her. They exchanged a look, then dropped the hammer. His daughter was dead, they explained, and according to West's story I had been accused of abusing her. I fervently denied the story.

The investigators seemed unconvinced. They told me my DNA had been found on the victim. I said that was impossible. One officer was holding a folder, he opened it and took out a photograph, laying it in front of me. I recoiled when I saw the picture: a woman's body, naked and pale, with a ring of bruises around her neck. That's when the deeper horror struck, as I looked at the long blond hair and the face beneath. It was the girl I had slept with only days before. The one sent to me by David West.


	4. Alexandria: The Vision Of Herbert Ashe

**Note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to places or people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.**

 **\- Zarathustra 86**

* * *

 **Alexandria: The Vision Of Herbert Ashe Sr.**

Herbert Ashe Sr was the only son of Isaac Beaumont Ashe, a real eastate mogul. The Ashes draw their heritage back to English nobility, claiming to be a cousin branch to the Tudors. The Ashes moved to America (settling in New England) in the early 1800s. Once in the United States, they invested in oil and real estate, but it appears that their investments failed by-and-large and the family's wealth diminished subastantially. Isaac Beaumont Ashe brought their dwindly family back to the top.

Isaac Ashe was aggressive in courting the American political class in WWI. He was an aggressive proponent of the war and invested in military contracts. He spent half of his liquid assets in campaign contributions throughout New England and neighbouring states. In all, Ashe spent four-fifths of his fortune. His investments paid off, however. By the late 1920s his overall networth doubled. Even through the Great Depression Ashe managed to expand his economic wealth and political influence.

Isaac Ashe's only son, Herbert, was born in the 1930s. In the early rise of Nazi Germany, where most Americans saw a threat, Isaac Ashe saw an opportunity. Ashe sold millions of barrels of oil to the Nazis, commissioned the construction of concentration camps, and reportedly met with Adolf Hitler in 1940. In 1953 Ashe ran for Senate, winning handily. He was a conservative politician, aligned with the Mcarthyites. In 1959 he made his first run for president, losing in the primaries. He made two more attempts at the presidency, but with little success.

At this point, Herbert Ashe had taken a lead role in running his father's financial empire. By all accounts he ran the business competently and the Ashe fortune continued to grow. In the early seventies, after the death of Isaac, Herbert Ashe turned his eyes to politics. He was intent from the start of succeeding where his father had failed - he would become the President of the United States.

Herbert Ashe ran for governor in the late seventies, winning by a narrow margin. He stayed in that position for seven years before being picked for President Westwood's second-term cabinet. When Westwood's term ended, Herbert Ashe announced his intention to run for President. Herbert Ashe surpassed his father, winning first the primary, then the Presidency.

His Presidency was fairly unremarkable. His approval ratings stayed consistently low. He launched an offensive in the Middle East, which started out somewhat popular but ended as a public relations disaster. Ashe drastically cut taxes - having a hugely beneficial affect on the Ashe family enterprise - but this too proved unpopular. He served only one term, getting ousted by a left-wing candidate in the following election.

Two years after Herbert Ashe Sr retired from politics, his son started his own political career.

Herbert Ashe Sr went back into the the private sector more-or-less, but with less zeal than before. Throughout the 1990s he spent a great deal of time alone, fascinated by his families royal heritage and the culture of Medieval England. It was in this period that Ashe began developing his first plans for establishing a private colony. Ashe shared this idea with his closest confidantes, members of Ashes fraternity, and plans were laid to establish this private nation.

His confidantes were his life-long fraternal brothers: _Archibald Fairweather, Gregory Rothstead, Regis Mayer Sr, Robert Rosenkrauss, Christoph and Patrick Schlessinger, and Richard Scott_. Their families hold fifty to one-hundered- _billion_ dollars between them.

New Alexandria, as they came to call it, would incorporate the greatest aspects of Western civilization. Like a feudal society people would be divided into a sort of caste system. The business leaders and political elites would be the noble class which determines how the colony would function. The buildings would resemble ancient Greco/Roman structures, or Medeival European Castles, or Victorian Mansions. The maintenance of the vast area they envisioned would require a much larger second class: the common folk.

There are whispers that New Alexandria has been built, though no one seems to know where. What we know for sure is that Ashe and a dozen other investors have recently spent billions of dollars on some project - the nature of which has been carefully concealed from the general public.

 _\- Damon Cohen_


	5. The Prophet, Bioy Casares

**The Prophet, Bioy Casares**

The Prophet came from Argentina. Born an only child in a rural area near Buenos Aires, Bioy Casares was poor but well educted. By all accounts he was a quiet, reclusive and imaginative youth. What little is known of his family and their heritage sheds little light on what he would become. Despite humble, impoverished beginnings, Casares would rise as the leader of a new religion.

His prophetic work began only recently, when he took to roaming the streets of Buenos Aires speaking of armegeddon, alien worlds, and the end of the human epoch. Standing on a soap box, gesticulating wildly, Casares ranted and raved. At night he would point at the sky and speak of the coming of two new stars - even going so far as to indicate their precise locations. His prophesies were ignored at first. Until the appearance of the green star.

The Prophet proclaimed from the start that two new stars would appear in the heavens. The first he said would be green, the second red. When the green star did, in fact, appear, the Prophet's first disciples began to collect. Casares would speak in many languages: Spanish, English, German, French, Japanese, Farsi, and Latin - though he claimed he'd never learned them before. In the years that followed his newfound church expanded into the thousands.

Casares proclaimed himself "The Prophet And First Heresiarch" and his followers "The Church Of Orbis Tertius". He led his followers into the Argentine mountains, searching for an artifact he claimed was shown to him in a dream. Three to five thousand faithful followed Casares into the mountains where they began searching for the unknown object. What is beyond question is that they did find an ancient artifact, as Casares had prophesied, though skeptics may suggest it wasn't the one he had dreamed.

The artifact was reported to be quite large (3x taller than a man, 4 men abreast) and shaped like an arched doorway or an upside-down shield. It was dark black with a glassy, marble-like, smooth texture. Casares and his followers made the artifact a subject of worship. But this ancient artifact was extremely valuable and this made the small, peaceful cult the target of a much larger power.

Accounts differ on who launched the assault on the church. Some say it was the Argentine military, other blame militias or gangs. Many point the finger at traditional imperial powers like America or Britain. But all agree that thousands of the church's followers were killed, the artifact was taken, and no one is quite sure where the artifact is anymore.

Casares was not killed however, and at least one thousand of his followers survived. The cult regrouped in Buenos Aires, but it seemed to be in decline. It was at this time that word began to spread that astronomers had spotted a new star. As Casares had predicted, the star was red.

Within three months The Church Of Orbis Tertius quintupled in size. Word of the new church began to trickle out to the broader world. Casares presented his Seven Prophecies to a rapidly swelling congregation. The Prophet claimed that their stolen artifact was one of many (36, he claimed) and even claimed to know their precise locations.

But as the world was just beginning to hear of The Argentine Prophet, he was killed. Invited to speak in Mexico, Casares was struck by a car and later died in hospital. Fortunately, he had already written the two texts that comprise his religion: _The God-Realm,Circus Virtuoso and Divisions of Sin._

His disciples split into groups, in search of the 36 artifacts - as Casares predicted. Most went to Brazil, the Prophet had said that another artifact was lying on the ocean floor near Rio De Jainero. A smaller group headed to the State of Amazonas, chasing a more ambiguous lead. At least a two dozen other groups set off in groups ranging from 500 to as few as three.

Now the church's members are spead out across the world. They can be found in Mexico, America, Canada. Many traveled to West Africa, Egypt, the Medditerranean, and the Middle East. A few went to Europe, India, Japan, and Australia.

As of this date, Casares' two stars are visble by night.

 _\- Jane Woodley_


End file.
